19 Quotes by Lisa Delpit

As a result, the education for mind and body was also linked to education for the spirit. Therefore, in the African tradition, it is the role of the teacher to appeal to the intellect, the humanity, and the spirituality in his or her student.

We all mouth the mantra "All children can learn." I would modify the chant to "All children do learn." It’s just that some of them learn that we expect them to be successful, and some learn from us that they are dumb. Whatever we believe, they learn.

I believe that the ideal teaching of "skills" should be intentional and explicit, as well as be: (1) situated within engaging activities; (2) embedded in real writing, reading, and communication or, if taught in isolation, put immediately into the context of real writing, reading, and communication; and (3) taught flexibly when needed, rather than as an unvarying curriculum.

Successful instruction is constant, rigorous, integrated across disciplines, connected to students' lived cultures, connected to their intellectual legacies, engaging, and designed for problem solving that is useful beyond the classroom.

While it is certainly true that inequity, family issues, poverty, crime, and so forth all affect poor children's learning opportunities, British educator Peter Mortimore found that the quality of teaching has six to ten times as much impact on achievement as all other factors combined.

One still-vivid example is when one of my professors asked me about my educational background. I explained to him that I grew up in an all-black neighborhood, had gone to segregated all-black schools, with all-black teachers until my last years in high school. With a smile of what I am sure he thought was encouragement, he asked, "How in the world did you ever learn how to write?" He had no clue that he had insulted my community, my family, and my teachers.

There is no achievement gap at birth.

If the curriculum we use to teach our children does not connect in positive ways to the culture young people bring to school, it is doomed to failure.

In order to teach you, I must know you.